Readers React: There’s a candidate for Republicans repulsed by Trump and Cruz: Hillary Clinton

To the editor: The thesis of Doyle McManus’ article is that “taking the poison” of nominating and voting for Sen. Ted Cruz for president will help clarify things about the Republican Party. (“Ted Cruz is still the best bad option,” Opinion, April 27)

I disagree completely. The stakes are much too high in a presidential election to use it as some sort of object lesson for the GOP about its future.

A better means of communicating to the GOP would be to do what several of my better-informed Republican friends have told me they plan on doing: registering as a Democrat and voting for Hillary Clinton, or simply not voting at all.

Losing to Clinton by a wide margin will reinforce the message that the GOP had allegedly learned after its 2012 defeat: that Republicans must be more inclusive, must reach out to Hispanic and women voters and must become less extreme.

Voting for Cruz in the general election will only damage the GOP more by alienating even further the groups they decided they most urgently need.

There are ways for Republicans to make their voices heard without voting for a terrible candidate.

Matthew Singerman, Newbury Park

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To the editor: Citing “puckish” Sen. Lindsey Graham’s characterization of the Trump and Cruz candidacies as a choice between “being shot or poisoned,” McManus writes, “It’s the dilemma millions of voters will face.”

Dilemma? What dilemma?

McManus digs deep to quote a failed candidate who dropped out before the first primary and along the way besmirches Trump as a “vulgarian” and Cruz as “oleaginous” (that’s “oily” for those who don’t have a dictionary handy).

Common sense dictates that among Trump and Cruz supporters there is no dilemma; they know exactly whom they are voting for and why. Republicans are turning out in record numbers.

So we are left to ponder McManus’ motivation in concocting such a premise. He comes across as a Democrat attempting to influence Republicans to nominate the weaker candidate.

William Foard, Marina del Rey

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